Characterization of genetic variation in the VGLL4 gene in anorexia nervosa

Date Published: 4/14

Abstract: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a chronic psychiatric disease characterized by a refusal to maintain body weight at or above 85% of that which is normal for height, body dysmorphia, and fear of gaining weight. Genetic studies have had limited success identifying risk loci and a recent genome-wide association study of 1033 AN cases and 3733 controls found no significantly associated loci; however, it identified several genes with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of nominal significance: AKAP6, FAM155A, LRP2, NTNG1, VGLL4, and ZNF804B (Wang et al., 2011). We attempted to replicate these associations in an independent cohort of 396 female AN cases of European descent (mean age =32.4 ± 14.25) obtained from the NIMH Center for Collaborative Studies on Mental Disorders (Kaye et al., 2008) and 690 age-matched and education-matched European controls (mean age= 26.34 ± 8.33).

aDepartment of Psychiatry, Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, bDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, cDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, dDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, eNew York Presbyterian Hospital- Westchester Division, Weill Medical College of Cornell, University, White Plains, New York, fEating Recovery Center, Denver, Colorado, gDepartment of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, hNeuropsychiatric Research Institute, Fargo, iDepartment of Clinical Neuroscience, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Fargo, North Dakota, jDepartment of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, kCenter for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, lDepartment of Psychiatry, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, mScripps Genomic Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, nDepartment of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, oDepartment of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, pClinical Psychology Program, American School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University,Washington, District of Columbia, USA, qRoseneck Hospital for Behavioral Medicine, Prien, rDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Munich (LMU), Munich, Germany, sCenter for Addiction and Mental Health, tDepartment of Psychiatry, Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network, uDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, vDepartment of Psychiatry, Neurobiology, Pharmacology, and Biotechnology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, wDepartment of Academic Psychiatry, Bermondsey Wing Guys Hospital, University of London, London, UK and xBrain Mind Institute EPFL – Lausanne and Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry, University of Lausanne Medical School, Lausanne, Switzerland Correspondence to Toni-Kim Clarke, PhD, Translational Research Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, 125 S. 31st Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA Tel: +44 131 537 6531;